A technology is attracting attention that automatically creates, by genetic programming, an image processing program that executes desired image processing. In this technology, an image processing program is created by combining partial programs (image filter programs, for example) used for image processing, after which the created image processing program is optimized by genetic programming in which an input image and a processing result (a target image, for example) taken as a target are used. An example of related art is described in Shinya Aoki, Tomoharu Nagao “Automatic Construction of Tree-structural Image Transformations (ACTIT)” The Journal of The Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers, Vol. 53, No. 6, p. 889-892, Jun. 20, 1999.
As an example of an apparatus that uses genetic programming, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-151371 proposes an image processing apparatus that creates an image processing procedure by which a desired processing result is obtained. With this image processing apparatus, the user only has to specify part of the area of an image to be processed and to create a target image on which image processing desired by the user has been performed in the specified area.
As another example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2014-26521 proposes a technology with which a feature value extraction method used in template matching is learned by genetic programming.